The Backlash Mission

Chapter 14

Geoff Dupre pulled out of his driveway a few minutes before nine, headlights cutting twin cones through the light mist that had sprung up in the past hour. Caine let him get a block away, then nodded to Braune. "Let's go."

"Right," the other said. Pulling smoothly away from the curb, he gave leisurely chase.

Dupre was easy to follow. Braune stayed one to two blocks behind him as they headed northwest, drifting farther back as the traffic thinned and the buildings of Denver were replaced by trees and hills. Caine kept a close watch for signs that Security had identified their car, but as far as he could tell that danger hadn't yet materialized. If so, splitting the team might turn out to have been a bad decision, especially if he and Braune ran into more opposition than he expected. But getting all five of them caught in the same car would be a disaster; and Security still might tumble to them before the night was up. Better that three of the team were out of the opposition's immediate reach on this one.

The small office-type building Dupre eventually parked his car beside was situated between two large hills that hid it from Denver proper. Cutting across one end of the parking lot was a half-buried pipeline that disappeared into the foliage upslope; surrounding the whole area was a tall fence with sensor clusters mounted at each corner and over the single gate. Inside the fence, flanking the gate and drive, was a one-man guard shelter.

"Now what?" Braune asked as they drove toward the gate. "It's too late to stop—we'd look suspicious."

"Agreed." Caine pursed his lips, eyes taking in the details as he thought. With civilian clothing over their flexarmor they should be able to approach the gate attendant without panicking anyone.

Breaking in was out of the question—the sensors were surely good enough to spot that and relay an alarm to the nearest Security post. But something more subtle might get by the defenses. "I wish we'd brought Alamzad," he commented. "He might be able to give us a better reading on those sensors. Well, let's go ahead and try the old bureaucratic confusion approach. You have your Special Services ID?"

"Sure."

"Okay. Play off my cues."

They rolled to a stop in front of the gate. Caine stepped out of the car and walked briskly over to the guard shelter. The guard himself, a middle-aged man in a loose uniform, had emerged by the time Caine reached him. "Yes?" he asked, squinting a bit against the car's headlights.

"Inspector Craig Nielson, Special Services," Caine said, holding his ID against the fence for the other's scrutiny. It was an impressive card, with two seals and three signatures and some of the best etched-gold trim the Plinry blackcollars had ever turned out. The fact that it had nothing to do with any actual government agency was almost irrelevant—it looked official, and for many people that would be enough. Caine held his breath, hoping the guard was one of those.

Almost, but not quite. "Yes, sir," he said, his tone abruptly respectful. "I'm afraid I'll have to run your prints and retina pattern through the Athena link, though, before you can come in."

"Of course, of course," Caine said, mindful of the sensors overhead. They might not be continuously monitored, or even contain audio pickups at all, but he couldn't take the chance. "Just hurry it up."

"Yes, sir. If you'll slide that ID through here, this will only take a minute."

Caine passed the card through the indicated gap in the fence and the guard stepped into his shelter.

Half seen through the doorway, he busied himself with a compact terminal, and Caine forced his muscles to relax. If Hawking had gimmicked the card properly...

He had. "Uh, sir?" the guard said, frowning as he stepped back to the fence. "I can't seem to get the prints to read."

"Damn," Caine muttered with proper irritation. "I've told them and told them the alignment's off—half the readers on the continent won't pick the pattern up. Do you have another machine?"

"No, sir, but I've got a direct scanner right here. We can just bypass the ID entirely."

"Sure, sure, just get on with it," Caine said, waving a hand impatiently. The guard leaned into his shelter and the gate slid open half a meter. Caine stepped through and joined the guard, eyes flicking once to the other's belt holster. A paral-dart gun, by its size, and it presented a safer alternative to the nerve punch Caine had planned.

"Right here, sir," the guard said, gesturing into the shelter. Caine brushed past him, and as the guard leaned in behind him, he turned back and jabbed two fingers into the older man's solar plexus.

The guard's mouth popped open, a strangled unh the only sound to escape. Caine's right hand shifted to a steadying grip on the other's arm, his left deftly sliding the pistol from its holster and pressing its muzzle against the guard's thigh. A quiet burp, a reflexive jerk of the leg, and a second later the man went limp. Caine was ready; palming the gun and shifting to a two-handed grip, he swung the guard smoothly around and into a chair that took up most of the shelter's rear. Hitting the switch that opened the gate, he dropped the pistol into his pocket and then took a couple of seconds to make sure the guard was well enough braced and balanced to remain upright. Braune had the car through by the time he'd finished; closing the gate again, Caine got back in the vehicle for the hundred-meter drive to the building.

They parked just off the main door and headed inside. From the relative emptiness of the parking lot, Caine guessed that the graveyard shift was run by a fractional staff. If they were careful, they might pull this off without running into anyone who would ask awkward questions.

The entry foyer was lit but deserted, as was the hallway beyond its double doors. Caine and Braune padded quietly past a row of closed office doors, turned a corner—

And came face to face with Geoff Dupre.

The big man stopped with a jerk, the steaming cup in his hand sloshing dangerously. "You!" he half whispered.

"No noise," Caine warned, letting the other see the shuriken in his hand. "We aren't going to hurt anyone unless you make that necessary. Understand?"

Dupre licked his lips. "What do you want?"

"Take us to your office first. No sense in standing around out here."

In silence Dupre led them down the hall to a cluttered room near the building's center. An open interior door showed several men working at a line of consoles beneath a computerized wall map alive with spidery lines. Braune caught Caine's eye and nodded fractionally toward the room before closing the door and positioning himself beside it. Caine closed the hallway door and gestured Dupre to his desk chair. The big man hesitated, then sat down. "Well?" he asked, almost belligerently.

Caine regarded him coolly. "You have a real talent for getting your courage up at the wrong times," he told the other. "Where do you store the explosives in this building?"

Dupre's mouth twitched. "Explosives?"

"Things that go bang," Braune supplied. "You use them in digging new aqueducts for the water system, remember?"

Dupre flicked a glance in Braune's direction, then looked back at Caine. "There aren't any real explosives here. All that stuff is kept in the operations warehouse."

"What have you got here?"

"Nothing really except some primer caps that we sometimes send down the pipes to clear out blockages. They're not very powerful."

"They'll do for a start," Caine said. "Where are they?"

"What're you going to do with them?" Dupre asked.

"Clear out some blockages of our own. Where are they?"

For a moment Dupre seemed ready to argue the point further. Then his eyes dropped to the star in Caine's hand and he sighed. "They're in the basement storeroom."

"Good. Braune, go with him and get a box or two."

They left. Caine waited until the sounds of their footsteps had faded down the hall, then stepped to the inner door and cracked it open. Four men, backs to him, were working at the consoles. Pulling the paral-dart pistol from his pocket, Caine eased into the room, eyes darting around for anyone he might have missed seeing. Then he lined up the gun on the farthest man and squeezed the trigger.

Five seconds later all four were sprawled in their seats, fully conscious but unable to move. Stepping to the consoles, Caine gave them a quick scan and settled down to work. By the time Braune and Dupre came looking for him he had found a complete map of the water retrieval system and was halfway through printing a copy. "Any trouble?" he asked Braune, eying the long, flat box cradled under the other's arm.

Braune shook his head. "But we'd better get moving," he said, glancing at the sprawled figures.

"There are at least another five to ten people wandering around the building."

"Right. Almost ready." Caine looked at Dupre, who was staring at his paralyzed colleagues with a mixture of horror and fascination. "Dupre, I'm afraid you're going to have to join them," he told the man, drawing the paral-dart gun from his pocket once more. "Lie down and get comfortable."

Dupre's jaw tightened visibly, but he obeyed without argument. Caine sent a cluster of paral-dart needles into the man's shoulder and then, after a moment's hesitation, returned the gun to his pocket.

The gun's unfired shots would tell them later which of the plethora of paralyzing drugs was being used locally, a bit of knowledge that would be crucial if they ever needed to counteract its effects themselves. Virtually all antidotes to paralyte drugs were highly toxic unless the corresponding drug was already in the bloodstream.

A minute later the last of Caine's requested maps was finished, and he and Braune began their withdrawal. Luck was with them; they saw no one as they made their way down the corridors, out to their car, and across the lot to the fence. The guard's eyes held impotent rage as Caine opened the gate and rejoined Braune. Leaving the gate open, they drove off into the night.

—

The same woman as on the previous night was sitting in the coatcheck window when Lathe and Skyler came into the Shandygaff bar, her makeup still far too heavy for Lathe's taste. "Good evening," he nodded to her, gesturing toward the main room. "Mr. Charm in tonight?"

"Who?" she frowned.

"The short lad with the itchy palms and the mobile guardhouses," Skyler amplified.

"Oh—Mr. Nash. The guardhouses' names are Briller and Chong, if you're interested." She cocked her head. "What did you do to Chong last night, by the way?"

"Who, us?" Lathe asked innocently.

She studied him for a moment, then shrugged slightly. "It doesn't matter, I guess. All three are here tonight, if you really care, wandering around inside somewhere. And, uh, Mr. Kanai is also here.

Shall I have a waiter take you to him?"

"We'll find him," Lathe assured her. On his wrist, his tingler came to life as Skyler covertly tapped out a message: Kanai: Lathe and Skyler are here.

Kanai; Bernhard's with me. Come back; booth four, seventy-five degrees from entrypoint.

"Talk to you later," Lathe said to the girl. Skyler was already through the door; lengthening his stride, the comsquare caught up. Angling to the right, they headed through the tables until they spotted Kanai.

"Good evening," Kanai said as they slid into the booth. "May I present Commando Jorgen Bernhard.

Comsquare Damon Lathe; Commando Rafe Skyler."

Bernhard nodded in turn, his eyes cool. "From...?"

"Most recently, Plinry," Lathe told him.

The other's eyebrows rose at that, but if he was overly impressed he hid it well. "I see. A long way from home, then. All the more reason why you need our help."

" 'Need' may be too strong a word," Lathe said. "But we certainly could use it."

"You're pretty confident for a couple of strangers who don't even know how this city operates,"

Bernhard returned. "You need our help, all right. The only real question is whether or not you're worth risking our position over."

"Kanai said the same thing," Lathe said. "If you're trying to inflate your fee, consider the point made."

A tight smile flicked across Bernhard's face. "If you're expecting me to take offense, you're wasting your time. I've been insulted by people far more skilled at it than you." He folded his hands into a double fist on the table in front of him, his dragonhead ring glinting as he did so. "Let's get down to business. You want a list of high-ranking military people who were here during the war, correct?"

Lathe nodded. "More specifically, I'm interested in those people who were with the Aegis Mountain contingent."

Bernhard's face didn't change, but for just a second his clenched hands seemed to tighten. "Why Aegis?" he asked carefully.

"Why not? It was the major installation in this part of the continent, so it's reasonable to assume the top of the cut would have been assigned there."

Bernhard snorted. "Don't. We had as many dimbos at all levels as any other base I've seen."

"Ah—so you were in Aegis, too," Lathe said. "Good. You'll know who the best people were, then."

Bernhard's face hardened. "Sure. They're the ones who stayed behind to run the krijing machines when the gas attack began and the rest of us ran like geldings."

"Gas attack?" Skyler frowned. "Aegis was supposed to be proof against that sort of thing."

"It was," Bernhard said quietly, eyes focused somewhere else. "We think a neutron warhead must have cracked a fault line and taken out the gas sensor and filtration system in one of the ventilation tunnels. By the time the interior environment sensors let us know the gas was coming in, it was too late."

"Someone should have noticed the ventilation sensors weren't registering—" Skyler began.

"I know that!" Bernhard snapped. "We were busy fighting an invasion at the time."

He stopped abruptly, and for a moment the only sound in the booth was the muffled background hum from the rest of the room. "Sorry," he muttered at last. "It still hurts, sometimes."

Lathe nodded. "We've all got memories like that. So... you ran interference for the evacuation?"

"Such as it was." Bernhard shook his head. "I don't know what the idiot in charge thought he was doing—if the gas was seeping into the base, he should've realized the air outside would be rancid with the stuff. Even with the masks enough got into most people's skin to affect them. I don't think more than fifty out of the eight hundred we got out lived more than six months afterward."

Skyler grunted. "Sounds like Denver itself was damn lucky."

"It was a pretty heavy gas," Kanai said. "Stayed in the valleys around Aegis for the most part. But you're right—the Ryqril could easily have destroyed the city if they'd wanted to."

Lathe shifted his eyes to the oriental. "Were you in the base, too?"

Kanai shook his head. "I was on bodyguard duty in Athena. They were using us a lot for guard and civilian-control work at the end."

"Really?" Skyler asked, cocking an eyebrow. "Seems a waste of talent."

"What else were they going to do with us?" Bernhard returned sourly. "The war was lost, pure and simple. Why save us for guerrilla activity that would never take place when they had the immediate problem of crowd control?" He snorted and swore under his breath.

Lathe felt his own jaw tighten in sympathetic response. The Plinry blackcollars had taken their own share of contempt after the war from a populace who understood neither their abilities nor their limitations. But the military people of Aegis and Denver ought to have had more sense. "I know how you feel," he said to Bernhard. "You just have to keep remembering that it's that selfsame underestimation that's let us survive this long in enemy territory."

Bernhard regarded him coolly. "Maybe that's how you survived, Comsquare, but we got tired of being mistaken for sheep long ago. Everyone in Denver knows what blackcollars are and what we can do."

"Including the government?" Skyler asked.

"Of course."

"And they let you alone?"

Bernhard's eyes dropped briefly to the table. "We have what you might call an unwritten nonaggression pact with them," he said. "We don't hit government targets, and they don't bother us."

Lathe stroked his dragonhead ring. "That includes Ryqril targets, too, I suppose?"

"Yes, though given that the base outside Aegis and the town a couple of klicks farther on are the only sizable ones in the area, that's hardly a major consideration."

"Interesting. I presume you remember the oath you took when you were given that ring?"

Bernhard looked back up, his eyes blazing into Lathe's. "The war is over, Lathe. Over and done with, and we lost. What comes now is survival, by any means available. I don't need your permission or your approval, and I damn well don't want your quixotic preachments. My force can't do anything against the Ryqril, and I'm not going to throw their lives away to satisfy some outdated notion of honor. Understood?"

"Understood," Lathe said evenly. "So are you going to take my job or not?"

Bernhard inhaled deeply, the anger fading from his face as he did so. "You'll get your list of names, sure. And then you'll get out of Denver."

Lathe raised his eyebrows. "Or else?"

"Consider it our fee. And I mean it."

"I'm sure you do. Understand in turn that we're not leaving until our mission's completed."

"That mission being something that'll get Security all stirred up, I suppose?" Bernhard said sourly.

Lathe smiled. "Join us and find out."

Kanai stirred in his seat, and Bernhard sent a glance in his direction. "I'll have the list for you tomorrow night," he told Lathe. "Be here at eight."

"How about a different meeting place?" Skyler suggested. "This one's getting a bit stale."

"You're too easily jaded." Bernhard snorted. "Aesthetics apart, the Shandygaff's the safest rendezvous around. Anywhere else in the city we'd be in someone's territory, and there could be trouble. I'm sure you'd like to avoid that."

"Doesn't bother us—we're leaving this town soon, remember?" Skyler said. "But if you're worried about it, why don't we go somewhere in Sartan's territory?"

For a split second the corners of Bernhard's mouth tightened. "What do you know about Sartan?" he asked carefully.

"Only that you've done a lot of work for him." Skyler shrugged. "I assumed you'd have free rein in his part of town."

"Um. Well, as it happens, Sartan hasn't got any real territory of his own. Yet. You have any real objections against the Shandygaff?"

Kanai cleared his throat. "I believe a possible objection has just arrived."

Lathe knew better than to turn and look; but Skyler would have a view of the anteroom area.

"Skyler?"

"One of the mobile guardhouses," the other reported. "Probably Chong—the way he's favoring his right arm suggests he's the one Mordecai took out last night. The other one, Briller, seems to be hovering back in the anteroom."

"Both will be armed," Kanai said. "You wearing flexarmor?"

Lathe nodded. "So much for neutral territory."

"I saw Chong when he limped back in last night," Kanai said. "One of the rules here is that you don't pick on the bar's enforcers." He slid his legs out from under the table and stood up. "Let me see if I can placate them—the last thing you want is to draw attention to yourselves with a fight."

"Remind him we can get rougher than last night if we have to," Lathe told him.

Kanai nodded and headed across the room. Lathe watched him stop in front of Chong, took a quick reading of the bigger man's body language, and reached two fingers under his right sleeve.

Mordecai: Report.

Man loitering near entrance; suggest lookout. No evidence of massive Security presence.

So charming Mr. Nash had decided to handle this without official involvement. That was one plus, anyway. "How many men besides Briller and Chong does Nash have?" he asked Bernhard.

"Half a dozen regulars, more on short call," the other said, eyes starting to darken.

"You look perturbed," Skyler said.

Bernhard's gaze stayed on Chong and Kanai. "You assume Nash is after you. He could just as easily be after me.

Lathe thought about that for a moment. Unlikely, but not impossible. "You have any backup men outside?"

"Unfortunately, no," Bernhard said grimly. "I didn't expect it to be necessary. You have anybody besides the one?"

"No, but don't let that worry you." Mordecai: Possible encirclement in progress. Scan for outside troops.

Troops identified, was the prompt response. Four, including doorway lookout. Inadequate visual support.

In other words, Nash's men weren't in solid visual contact with each other, which meant they could be taken out quietly one by one. "Amateurs," Skyler said and snorted.

"That's fine with me," Lathe said. Mordecai: Clear gauntlet quietly. Minimal force.

Acknowledged.

"It's been a long time since I've heard the old tingler codes," Bernhard mused. "Brings back memories.... You think he'll be able to do the job alone?"

"If they don't spot him, easily. If they do, we'll just have to start punching from this side without him. Chong's wearing an earphone—if he twitches, we move."

"But no killing," Bernhard warned. "You kill someone here and the whole city'll be after you."

"If we weren't worried about killing," Lathe said patiently, "we'd have been out of here three minutes ago."

"Just wanted to remind you." Bernhard grunted. "Looks like Kanai's not getting through."

Lathe focused on the distant conversation. Chong hadn't budged, but his expression now resembled a thundercloud and his right hand had taken up residence in a side pocket. "Negotiations do seem to be breaking down," he agreed. "No back door, I suppose?"

"If there were, I'd have suggested it three minutes ago," Bernhard retorted. "There's nothing we can use. No windows, either."

"Your basic firetrap," Skyler said. "Can we assume that there are a lot of important people in here tonight? People Nash and company would hesitate to damage?"

"Chong'll roast over a slow fire if he shoots anyone but us," Bernhard said flatly. "But he's a damn good shot, and this table is fastened pretty solidly to the floor. We'll never even get our legs out from under it before he gets one or more of us."

"Only if he can see what he's shooting at. Lathe?"

"Probably our best approach," Lathe agreed. "Main switches are to the right of the door; emergency lights high on the wall behind you, Bernhard, and near the back of the room on my side."

"There's one over the main switches, too," Skyler pointed out.

"That one goes last—it'll be shining right into Chong's eyes when it comes on." Lathe tapped at his trigger: Mordecai: Stand by for fast break. Kanai: three-count, then distract Chong to right. Sliding two shuriken into his hands, Lathe set his feet... and as Kanai's left hand twitched toward the anteroom he moved.

His first star spun across the room to bury itself in the wall just above the light switches. There was a sputtering flash of shorted circuits, and the room's soft glow was abruptly replaced by the harsh floodlights of the emergency system. Shouts of surprise and anger, Chong's bellow louder than any of them—and Lathe was out of the booth, diving flat to open up Skyler's line of fire, then rolling up on one knee to send his second shuriken over the booths toward the emergency light box in the rear.

Peripherally, he caught a glimpse of Bernhard swinging out his side of the booth; a second later the light back that way winked out in a tinkle of glass. Even as he spun around to the door the last of the backups yielded to Skyler's shuriken and the room was plunged into darkness.

Almost. From the anteroom a pool of light was spilling through the doorway, silhouetting Chong neatly against the opening. Possibly the big man's mind was still trying to catch up; if so, it never had sufficient time to do so. Skyler's knife flickered just once as it bounced hilt-first off Chong's forehead, dropping the man where he stood. One down, one—or more—to go. Lathe sprinted forward, skirting the pool of light and flattening himself by the doorway.

He needn't have bothered. Briller, folded up fetal-style on the floor, had already lost all interest in the proceedings. Across the room Kanai, shuriken at the ready, was easing the outer door open for a quick look. Sidling around the doorframe into the anteroom, Lathe looked for the coatcheck girl.

If she was, indeed, the Shandygaff's backup gun, she wasn't doing her job. She stood upright at her window, empty hands folded almost primly on the sill; her expression behind all the makeup showed simple interest, with no anger or fear accompanying it. She looked at Lathe as he entered, nodded toward Chong. "Is he dead?" she asked.

"Not if I know Skyler," he replied, squatting to retrieve his teammate's knife. "He avoids killing even more than the rest of us. Ryqril excepted, of course."

"They'll get you before you take five steps outside, you know."

"I doubt it." Bernhard and Skyler slipped into the anteroom; Lathe tossed the latter his knife and reached for his tingler. Mordecai: Report. Lookout approaching door. Others neutralized.

Lathe cocked an eyebrow at Skyler, who nodded and stepped to the door. He exchanged low words with Kanai—and abruptly flung the door wide, hurled his knife, and slammed the panel shut. A

single splintering impact shook the thick wood, followed by silence. Skyler eased the door open a crack just as Mordecai's message came: All clear.

"I suggest you two fade while you can," Lathe told Bernhard as he stepped to Skyler's side. "But first give me a way to contact you tomorrow."

"Just call in a message for me here," Kanai spoke up. "We can discuss a rendezvous point then."

Halfway out the door, Lathe looked back at him. "Call you here?"

Kanai met his gaze evenly. "I'm the contact man. It's my job to be here."

"What about Nash?"

"I can handle him. Just go."

Lathe flicked a glance over Kanai's shoulder at the coatcheck girl, then nodded. "Tomorrow night," he said, and ducked out the door.

Skyler was waiting for him a short way down the sidewalk. "Let's get moving," he urged as Lathe joined him. "The other customers might eventually take exception to being left in the dark."

They set off quickly across the mall toward the sidestreet where they'd parked their car. "A fairly profitable evening, as these things go," Skyler remarked as they walked. "If nothing else, we at least found out that Bernhard's team can still fight."

"We learned a lot more than that," Lathe said. "We know the Ryqril have a center outside Aegis Mountain—which suggests that they at least, are still locked out."

"Hmm. So the gas-attack survivors locked the place down before they died. Maybe that's why the commander sent so many of his people out—didn't want anyone around who might consider opening up in exchange for an antidote."

"That's my guess," Lathe said, glancing behind them. No tails tonight, apparently. Hardly surprising.

"Could be one of the reasons Bernhard resents having been sent out with the cattle drive, too.

Probably feels it was a slight on his integrity. That, or else his current life-style has rubbed blisters on his conscience."

"Kanai certainly has blisters on his," Skyler agreed. "Given that, you think Bernhard will come through with a useful list?"

"I don't know, but it doesn't matter anymore. We've already found our native guide."

There was a pause. "You're not serious," Skyler said at last.

"Why not? A blackcollar would certainly have made sure he knew all the ways in and out of a base he was assigned to."

"You'll forgive me if I doubt Bernhard's enthusiasm for such a project."

Lathe sighed. "He'll help us. Willingly or otherwise, he'll get us in. It's all a matter of finding the lever that'll move him."

"And of surviving his reaction to its use."

"There's that, of course," Lathe said. "There's always that."

—

The chaos lasted at a low level for quite a while after the brief battle, and the lights remained off even longer. Eventually the Shandygaff's employees finished getting their portable lanterns set up and a seething Mr. Nash got them working on the damaged wiring. The exodus of the angrier customers slowed to a trickle and stopped, leaving a remnant of the hardier and less impatient behind.

Seated alone at his small table, Galway sipped his drink and contemplated the tightening of his stomach muscles. Lathe and Skyler. On Earth, in Denver... and with the local blackcollars already signed on as allies. The files had said Bernhard's team always left government targets strictly alone—but Galway had seen for himself just how fast "harmless" blackcollars could turn.

Plinry's history was about to repeat itself in Denver. Galway could only hope Quinn still had time to start taking all of this seriously.